Kitchen Encounters
by Lady Anon
Summary: Snape and Hermione are both tired, but find themselves inexplicably drawn to the kitchen. What happened. Kind of fluffy, not dirty or anything. Pre-Relationship.


**Hey folks! **

**I was going to make this just a one-shot originally, but after receiving requests to continue the story, or make a sequel, I decided to give it a try. So this will be a series of one-shot-type chapters that may eventually lead somewhere. They will all occur in the kitchen, hence the name of the story. It will not just be Hermione and Severus in these…snap-shots, for lack of a better word, but many people. It takes place during The Order of the Phoenix, although it is kind of based on my memory so it is only semi-compliant. **

**Constructive criticism and snap-shot ideas are welcome, flames are not. If you don't like it, don't read!**

**Disclaimer: I may not own Harry Potter or his peeps, but I own this story and I own J.K. Rowling, so watch out! Just kidding, Rowling. See what I did there? J.K., Rowling….okay, that wasn't funny.**

**In the future disclaimers will be found at the bottom because I know how many people skip through them to the actual story….**

**Lovage Babes!~arthursgurrl**

Severus Snape stumbled into the kitchen of Grimauld Place, exhausted. It was his turn for watch, and he had covered for Molly and Arthur for the past two nights also, as Arthur was injured. Needless to say, he was worn. Even though he felt like he was going to pass out, he found he couldn't go to bed, not yet. So he decided he needed to eat something…and he had a particular craving for Betty Bluebell's Wizard Works ice cream, preferably something chocolate. He fell into a chair, only noticing then that there was someone else in the room.

Hermione was surprised, to say the least, when she saw a tired and almost frazzled Professor Snape enter the kitchen. It wasn't like he didn't have a right to be there, though it was nearly 3 in the morning, he had just startled her. She had been lying in bed these past hours, unable to sleep with so many thoughts whirling through her head. Finally she came downstairs to get a glass of water, and ended up remaining there.

So here they were.

Severus and Hermione. Hermione and Severus. Together. In the kitchen.

Hermione spoke first. "Good evening, professor." She winced. All she needed was a bad Transylvanian accent and she could pass for Dracula.

"Hello Granger." Snape said in a weary voice. "Whatever brings you here so late?"

"I might ask you the same thing, professor."

"If you did ask I would have to inform you that it is, indeed, none of your business where I go, who I meet, and at what time." Even exhausted as he was, Snape could still pull a biting remark, in a superior voice, off.

Hermione spoke without thinking. "It's a good thing I didn't ask then, isn't it." He just glanced at her face, then looked back at the table. Hermione felt in the silence, as she often did in silences, that she needed something to say. She settled on answering his original question. "I couldn't sleep, and then I was thirsty. All I could think about was, well, Ron. I mean, he's nice and all, but really he's so immature, and all he thinks about is Quidditch and eating. What if I don't want to be his girlfriend? But then again, how do I tell him without breaking his heart?" She realized, too late, that she was babbling. "Professor." She amended, a blush creeping up her neck and cheeks. She also realized at this moment, that she was wearing boxer shorts and a too-small tank-top that revealed far more then she wished to reveal, much less to _Professor Snape_! Luckily he seemed too tired to notice her appearance.

"I hardly think you would break his heart, Granger. He seems to think and feel with his stomach more than anything else, so it seems unlikely that you would have any effect other than giving him a mild stomachache." Snape replied in a dry voice. _I must be tired,_ he thought, _to be sitting here giving love advice to _Granger _of all people._

"I'm sorry Professor. I didn't mean to ramble on."

"I'm sure you didn't."

They fell into a silence, this one interrupted by Snape rising to get his ice-cream, which he knew Arthur had been hiding in the freezer. Hermione seemed to be wrapped up in her own thoughts, completely oblivious to him. Snape, after getting his bowl, hesitated a moment. "Would you like some?" He asked in a grudging voice.

"I'll get it." She said in an absent tone. Obviously her mind was somewhere else.

He was annoyed. Couldn't she see his was attempting to be _nice_? And he didn't do nice. Usually. "Granger. I'm standing here with a spoon in my hand."

"I'll get it." She said, staring off at something in the distance. "Just leave it there."

He sighed in exasperation, then tried a tactic he knew made sense to her. Logic. "Then you'll have to get another spoon and we'll have to wash more dishes. _I'll_ _get_ _it_."

She seemed even more distant. "No, really, it's fine…"

"Really Miss Granger, where is your sense of logic? I-"

Hermione jumped up, startling him, and began to pace furiously behind her chair. "I just don't know if I want it!"

Snape blinked. In a highly affronted voice he replied. "That's all you had to say."

She looked Confounded for a second, staring at him, his bowl of ice-cream, and his hand holding the spoon and poised to get more. "Oh." She seemed to realize what he was saying. "No, not that. I'm just not sure I want this, this…-thing-with Ron. I will have some of _that_." She fell back into the chair, watching him as he got another bowl, fill it with the ice-cream, and set it in front of her. "Thank-you." She said, smiling up at him, her mind finally back in the kitchen.

He grunted in reply and turned to leave the room where so much had happened without him, or her, noticing. He paused at the door. Like he had thought to himself previously, he didn't do nice. Though he supposed he could make an exception, just for tonight. "You're welcome." Then he left before she could reply.

Hermione smiled absently to herself, ate her ice-cream, and then traced his steps upstairs, entering her own room. She fell asleep quickly and slept soundly.

As did he.


End file.
